Alex Rider Sucks: 1
by Truth-Seeking Cretin
Summary: This is the first in a completely over-the-top series of parodies of Anthony Horowitz's populism and predictability. This should not be viewed by anyone.


Author's Note: Anthony Horowitz owns Alex Rider, not me. Thank God for that. As much as I used to like the Alex Rider books, they soon descended into a kiddie version of 007, and now every one of the books reads the same. So when I was 14 or so, before I found this site, I parodied the first three books South-Park-style: 'Because of the content, it should not be viewed by anyone.' Gratuitous violence, repeated strong drug references and four-letter words abound, you have now been warned. If you enjoy reading this one, then check out the other two.

Alex Rider's Adventure

Alex Rider stared at Ian Rider's coffin as it was lowered into the grave. The impatient priest hastily read out the rest of the statement, skipping two dozen lines and skimming the rest for keywords. "Deceased, beloved, travelling salesman, bullet-riddled, Jesus Christ I need a fag." He then charged back into the chapel to get a light and pick out a small boy to rape.

Alex Rider stood there motionless as the gravediggers half-heartedly shovelled two cubic metres of earth over the grave and then wandered off to catch the rest of the FA cup semi-final on the radio, leaving the shovels sticking out of the grave. Alex Rider's eyes roved over the grave once more, and he mentally assured himself, with finality, that his uncle was truly a corpse. A smile cracked. He laughed. He laughed harder and harder. He collapsed onto the ground, pounding his fists down endlessly, the volume of his hilarity reaching a crescendo. Finally he wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes, stood up, brushed himself off, and dialled a number into his mobile phone.

"Yeah, Mike, guess what - that cocksmoking dictator's kicked it!... Filled full of lead by some uncaught nutcase in Suffolk. So we've got the house, the car, the business, all to ourselves. EVERYTHING!... Good idea, you ring Pat and I'll ring Sean. Shall we invite any girls over?... Fine, boys' night out. Just get over here quick or I'll have to drink all this hooch by myself... Yeah, bring every rioting implement you can carry. This is gonna be great." He dialled a second number. "Sean, cancel all your plans and get a lift to my house. Ian's dead... What do you mean, 'really'? I'm looking at his grave right now. Get over here, and bring every rioting implement you've got. Boys' night out." He hung up the phone, then danced a jig on his uncle's grave and hoofed it back to the taxi.

* * *

The time was three a.m. The hedgehog wiggled his snout and inquisitively walked over to his brother on the road. He seemed to be in a bad way, with a crushed front left paw. He was mewling softly. The hedgehog looked around for help and saw two bright lights some way away. They approached fast, and he was run over by the left wheels of the late Ian Rider's SUV. 

The stereo was on at full volume, pumping out the latest punk rock for the benefit of the entire county. The four had already destroyed three digit's worth of mailboxes with pickaxes, egged a good portion of the West End, ran away from cops three times, been shot at by a shopkeeper, consumed several gallons of alcoholic beverages, gone on a drunken rampage in the London High Street, been to the stripclub, and persuaded four lovely ladies to tag along for the rest of the night using red Sterling notes. In short, the best night they'd ever had.

Running three red lights in fast succession, Alex, the driver, giggled, sucked his spliff, and grinned as his new girlfriend sucked something else. He bellowed his ecstasy out the open window of the car, revving the engine well past the red line with the speedometer reading 125. Pat and his topless bitch were making out in the middle bucket seats, sharing a blunt, Mike was in the backseat with his naked ho, and Sean was in the adjoined luggage compartment with his slut, and definitely having more fun than anyone else.

Up ahead was a sharp corner to stay on the main street, but he didn't want to lose his head of speed, so instead he nosed the wrong way up a one-way street. He saw flashing headlights ahead and knew no more; he slammed down on the brake pedal with both feet. People looked up from the backseat and everyone fell forward. After thirty more feet of skidding at full speed, there was a terrific crunch as the two cars collided head-on. Fortunately, both had braked sufficiently to provide a gross impact moment of 40mph.

Alex stopped yelling and opened his eyes. All he could see was white. So he extricated his face from the burst airbag and rubbed his bleeding nose. He opened the mangled front door and stepped out of the car.

The car he'd hit was a beautiful, sleek, silver BMW. At least the back half was. The front was now a smoking wreck that looked like modern art. So was the front half of his own SUV. He moaned in anguish. No way the tightarse insurance company would pay for this.

"My - my car!" howled the owner of the BMW. He tried and failed to kick open the utterly busted driver's side door of his car and instead climbed out the broken window, shredding one sleeve of his leather jacket and snapping one of his gold chains. "What the fuck were you doing going the wrong way, you dicksuckers?"

"You did not just call me a dicksucker," growled Alex.

"I did, motherfucker!" the driver barked, unfolding a butterfly knife. Alex bared his teeth and doubled his fists.

"I think we should step in before they kill each other," one MI6 agent said to another. Their car had been following this drug dealer's car ever since it left the crackhouse. "To hell with the investigation. Our job is to serve."

"No, wait a second." his partner said. "Check it out."

The dealer jumped forward and stabbed. Alex had the reflexes of a cat. He caught the wrist, dodged the punch with the other hand, and blocked the knee to the groin with his knee. He then nutted the bastard forcefully, putting him off balance, and twisted his arm round into a floor slam. Before the dealer had a chance to hit the ground Alex kneed him in the face hard, putting him up in the air again. Alex twisted his arm into the same floor slam, but stopped it short with another knee to the face. He did this twice more before letting him out of the floor slam. The bastard fell onto his back, feebly tried to get to his knees, and received another kick in the face. I won't go into too much detail about the state of his health after this beating, but his dental records for the rest three months would raise quite a few eyebrows. Finally the two heavier thugs in the backseat managed to wedge themselves through the doors with shoehorns and charged at Alex.

"Holy shit he's good." observed one of the MI6 agents, looking through a cigar-sized spyglass.

"I'll say!" exploded his partner. "Check out his car. Three friends, four prostitutes, a bunch of spliffs, and two empty cases of Old Speckled Hen. To do this shit is amazing, but while drunk and stoned it's inhuman."

At the exact same moment he said 'this' Alex suddenly stopped defending against the merciless punches and kicks of these experienced brawlers, zipped round the side of one, and unleashed a holy hell of coordinated punches and kicks that left even that gorilla-sized troll curled into a ball whimpering. The second man grunted, ripped half the front axle off the wrecked SUV, and swung it like a scythe. Alex nimbly leapt backwards, grinning. The bear swung it again, like a home-run swing this time. Alex ducked under it and rolled to the side to avoid the overhead whack from the thick iron bar. Pivoting around on his back, he used his feet to put the minder in a modest armlock. He forced the bar out of the man's hands, then yanked the wrist to put him off balance and dealt a powerful kick to the groin. The thug fell back, moaning like a ten-year-old. Alex grabbed the bar at the very end and swung it. It whistled through the air and hit the bastard in the chin, breaking his jaw. He then snapped round and swung it again, thudding it into the other thug's abdomen as a reminder to not get up. He got to his feet.

"Oh shit." said one of the MI6 members swiftly, seeing the last remaining gangmember, the one in the passenger's seat, pull a weapon.

Alex saw it too. He bolted for the SUV, jumping and rolling midway to dodge the fire from the revolver. The gangmember expired all six rounds, missing for various acceptable reasons, and opened the chambers to reload. He dumped all the empty cartridges onto his lap. Meanwhile Alex had successfully gotten into the SUV as his friends cowered in the backseat, opened the glove compartment, and pulled out one of his dad's guns, a Glock 17. He stared through the smashed windscreen, aimed, saw a revolver aiming back at him, and emptied the clip. The third bullet fired was the third bullet that hit the bastard, and the one that killed him, but he fired the rest of the 17-bullet clip to make sure. He apprehensively peered through the haze of smoke from various sources, and was finally satisfied that the bastard was dead.

Suddenly several other black cars pulled up behind them. It was the backup called in by the MI6 officers. Tuxedo-clad officers leaned out of the doors, holding assault rifles or autoshotguns.

"I surrender." These were the first words that leapt to the mouths of Alex, Pat, Mike, Sean, and the one conscious thug.

"Drop the weapon! Drop it!" an agent shouted. Alex paused, then complied.

"Hands in the air! Get out of the car now!" shouted another officer. Alex had no more choices but to allow himself to be arrested or shot.

* * *

"So... you're not the drug dealer we want?" asked the MI6 agent who had caught Alex. 

"No," said Alex, handcuffed to the chair he was sitting in, with sixteen handcuffs for good measure. "I'm just a run-of-the-mill drug user, and the law states that all you can do is confiscate my drugs."

"Actually, since your breathalyser test melted the machine, we could arrest you for drunk driving, but I'm only paid for raking in the fucking high-rolling criminals. Nomoneypenny is going to be really pissed off." He left the room.

Alex looked around. The guard circling the room on the wire frame walkway above his head had an autoshotgun and a pistol and a flash-bang grenade. There was no way he was escaping the room unless the guard dropped any of his weapons. Even the knife in his sock would be enough to get out of here, because he was an excellent throw with knives.

The door opened, and in came a very very ugly woman.

"Hello, Alex," she said softly. "I an Nomoneypenny of MI6. You fought excellently in the street last night. I was wondering if you would like to work for me."

"Sorry, I'm not on the game," said Alex, disgusted.

Nomoneypenny paused. "When I said 'work for me', I meant as an agent of MI6, not as a prostitute!" she screamed. "Christ, you really are fucking stupid, aren't you?"

"Fuck you!" growled Alex.

"Now, would you like to work as an MI6 operative?" she continued.

Alex paused. "Yes, I would."

"Really?" she said. "That's a first for me. Come on. Guard! Give me those keys!" The guard above her tossed down some keys. She was such a terrible catch that she managed to knock them into the far corner. She retrieved them and untied Alex. They walked over to the door and she opened it. Then he gave her a hard punch to the bottom of the jaw, successfully getting the force to travel up the jawbone and to the brain. Her brain rattled around inside her skull, and as a safety precaution her brain shut itself down. In short, he knocked her out.

He sprinted through the door before the guard in the other room could open fire. He came across a startled security guard. In thirty seconds the guard had a broken jaw, was unconscious and was naked. After thirty more seconds Alex Rider left the bathroom with the guard's uniform and pistol. He surreptitiously walked away from the scene, and dozens of soldiers with SA-80s ran past him before he reached the main entrance to the building. Here he adjourned to the bathroom, knocked out a cleaner, and left his 'workplace' early. It had taken him just over six minutes to escape from the MI6 headquarters.

He strolled over to the car he hoped was supposed to be his. He inserted his key, and an ear-splitting alarm went off. Dozens of troops surrounded him, guns levelled. Alex still hadn't worked out he was in MI6 headquarters, so he assumed the worst.

"Please," he said. "Please don't kill me. Tell Peter I'm sorry I raped his sister, and stole his cocaine business, and torched his whorehouse, and got him arrested, and ratted him out, and didn't help him escape from prison, and ratted him out again, and torched his whorehouse again, and shot his two brothers, and stole all his money via phone lines, and ran over his dog, and shot his mansion into pieces, and torched his whorehouse again."

The soldiers stared at him.

"What the fuck are you on about?" one asked. "Who the hell is Peter?"

"You - don't work for Peter?" he asked quickly.

"No, we work for MI6," he said slowly.

"MI6?" Alex said. "Tell your boss I'm sorry I killed all those undercover spies, and framed your previous boss for embezzlement, and assaulted him, and assaulted him again."

Nomoneypenny came out of the building, her heavily swelling jaw making her look like a gargoyle. "Why are you running, Alex?" she asked. "I'm offering you a fucking job!"

"Sorry," he said. "I thought you worked for Peter."

"Who the fuck is Peter?" she asked.

"It doesn't matter," he said. "So, what is my job?"

* * *

"Now, let me see if I've got the story straight." Alex said half an hour later in Nomoneypenny's office, the arthritic hamster in his head running the wheel at full speed. "There's this illegal immigrant named Herod Sayle stuck in Cornwall who's giving out a huge gift of top-of-the-line computers to every school in the country." 

"He immigrated legally." Nomoneypenny said patiently.

"And by doing this, he's hoping to gain British citizenship and possibly a knighthood for this noble act, so he can finally get a visa out of the oppressive regime of Cornwall."

"No - euh - what the fuck?"

"But we need to stop him from doing this by poisoning his supply of Jaffa Cakes, or else soon schoolchildren all across the country will be downloading military secrets from the Internet."

"Where did you get this shit from?"

"But we have to be careful, because he's crammed an army of 100,000 mujahadeen on his metre-wide estate, so as a safety precaution we're carpet bombing the area first."

Nomoneypenny was gobsmacked by his lunacy.

"And you figure the vile Communist emperor of Cornwall will want to retaliate, so you're sending me into his undersea weapons factory to assassinate him with a tubesock and a three-iron."

"I think we need to give him a blood test." Nomoneypenny ordered. Several officers grabbed Alex roughly and dragged him out the door.

* * *

"Just as we thought." The medical orderly told Nomoneypenny several hours later. "Enough hallucinogens in his bloodstream to warrant a lethal overdose. It's a miracle he's alive now. Only the most hardened of drug-users could stand up to 3500 milligrams of LSD and cannabis in their veins." 

"Just where the hell did you get the drugs from, anyway?" demanded an interrogator.

"I pickpocketed the weed from you and Nomoneypenny sold me the acid." Alex responded candidly. The aforementioned two coloured, looked at each other quickly, and looked away just as quickly.

"But you do really understand the situation, don't you?" pleaded Nomoneypenny, changing the subject.

"I understand perfectly." Alex replied. "Herod Sayle's in Cornwall giving a free gift to schools which might be a rich man's plea to knighthood or it might be a Trojan horse. It's probably the second one, because he's housing a huge, private, well-equipped, well-paid army. I'm going down there to investigate and eat Jaffa cakes."

"Precisely," said Nomoneypenny, taking out an LSD eyedropper and putting it away when she remembered other people were in the room.

"If I don't find anything, do I still get to kill people?" Alex whined.

"For the twenty-second time, no!" the interrogator screamed. Alex left the room to prepare.

"Miss Nomoneypenny, why don't we just send in a team of inspectors to find anything?" the interrogator asked.

"That would be too easy." she replied. He lit a spliff and she took out her eyedropper.

* * *

Alex Rider stood outside a house in north London. It was where his alter ego was supposed to live. He was supposed to learn all about his alter ego and become him. Alex had no idea what his alter ego's name was. Two people were waiting with him, his fake mother and his fake sister. MI6 had been so disorganised that both people were in their forties. His fake dad was supposed to be there too, but he had gotten so thoroughly smashed the night before that he was found glued to the ceiling of a pub. In Scotland. 

A limousine pulled up. It was the limousine of Herod Sayle, come to pick up Felix Lester (his alter ego), the winner of the prize of Sayle's competition. The competition itself is irrelevant, but the prize was that the winner would go and see the manufacture of the computers that Sayle was planning to give away, and have a few tries on the machine itself.

"Okay, Alex - I mean Felix," said one of the women. "That's your limousine."

"No shit," said Alex. He grabbed his suitcase and dragged it over to the car. His suitcase was supposed to be filled with his mother's choice of spare clothes, followed by a few items he supposedly 'sneaked' into his luggage, like a GameBoy Advance. His fake mother and fake sister had been too busy trying out the nearby male whorehouse to bother packing anything for him, and he had packed a huge amount of beer (in plastic bottles) and drugs (in plastic bags) and several guns from his father's stash. Therefore, his suitcase was incredibly heavy.

The driver got out and approached Alex. "Are you Felix Lester?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm Alex Rider," he beamed.

The driver stared. "And you are... his two lesbian mothers?"

"No," said one of the women. "I'm his mother and she's his sister."

"No, I am his mother and you are his sister!"

"What does it matter? Go on, Alex, fuck off, Mummy needs a good hard shag down the brothel."

The driver was flabbergasted. "Y-y-y-yes, come on Alex, Felix? We're going now." He attempted to lift up Alex's bag and instantly wrenched a muscle. Muttering very darkly and rubbing his back now and then, he began to load Alex's suitcase into the back. Ten minutes later he was still trying. It took the driver, Alex, and his mother and sister to load it in with twenty minutes' effort.

* * *

Alex arrived in Herod Sayle's compound, totally drunk. The driver himself was passed out across the crumpled bonnet, and Alex was now driving, covered in the shards of the windscreen. Two prostitutes had practically materialised out of thin air into the driver's compartment (where Alex sat), and the rear passenger part of the limousine was a heroin-filled blazing inferno. Lying on top of the limousine was a chestnut tree and a dead moose. Various obscenities had been spraypainted all over the limousine, and the rear axle had been blown off by an anti-tank rocket, so the car was dragging itself along with two wheels. 

Herod Sayle looked on in utter disgust. "I hate straight people," he said. He then looked at his snooker game and attempted to pot the black with a straightforward one-cushion shot. He managed to chip the white through a window.

"Well done sir!" lied his snivelling assistant, who politely forgot it was his turn, and grabbed another white from a sizeable stack and placed it on the table. Sayle lined up a perfectly straight twenty-centimetre shot from the white to a red to the corner pocket. He hit it eighty degrees off and put the white in another corner pocket. His assistant took another white and placed it on the table. Sayle decided to go for power instead of skill, and he reared back with the pool cue as though it was a polearm and stabbed viciously at the white, missing it by a metre and ripping a quarter of the velvet off the pool table at the same time.

Alex entered the room, holding a tin of whiskey in one hand and a spliff in the other. His shirt was mostly burned away, and he had left his trousers and underwear in the limousine, which was now a flaming, occasionally exploding wreck. "Hello, Mr Robert Sayle."

"My name is not Robert," he said with the most homosexual voice he could manage. "I am Herod, no relation to Robert Sayle." He attempted another stab at the same white ball and speared his cue through the table. In annoyance he kicked the pool table through the window, not realising his assistant was standing in the way. "You are Felix Lester, yes?"

"Felix Lester?" asked Alex. "Who the hell is he?"

"You are," Herod said patiently, realising Alex was drunk. Then he yelled out the window, "Hey assistant, I didn't tell you that you could go on coffee break, I'll have to butt-rape you more than usual for this!" He turned back to Alex. "Felix, I'll send someone to take you to your room, I having some butt-raping to take care of." He began walking down some stairs, which, according to signs at the top of the stairs, led to outside, and further down a room named 'Waste Disposal', and further down a room named 'Secret Anthrax Manufacture Room'.

"Aha!" said Alex aloud. "There's a conspiracy going on here! And it's going on in the Waste Disposal room!" He proceeded to run down the stairs past Herod Sayle and into the Waste Disposal room to look for clues. He searched long and hard, and eventually found a used needle. He examined the needle carefully, trying to establish what used to be in it. He came to the conclusion that it used to carry cocaine. Then he tried to establish who was the last person to use it. He suddenly recognised the needle as his own, and he put the needle back into his shirt pocket. He searched a bit more and found a used needle. He examined the needle carefully, trying to establish what used to be in it. He came to the conclusion that it used to carry cocaine. Then he tried to establish who was the last person to use it. He suddenly recognised the needle as his own, and he put the needle back into his pocket. He searched a bit more and found a used needle. He examined the needle carefully, trying to establish what used to be in it. He came to the conclusion that it used to carry cocaine. Then he tried to establish who was the last person to use it. He suddenly recognised the needle as his own, and he put the needle back into his pocket. He realised he had a hole in his pocket. He went back to the room where he had found Herod Sayle, where he saw some sort of huge warthog creature standing on two legs.

"Come on, you fucking bellend, ve're going to your room." it said. Alex suddenly realised with a shudder of horror that this warthog wasn't an animal; it was just a German woman who was twice as ugly as Nomoneypenny and approaching a level of ugliness only attained by Queen Elizabeth or Ursula. She marched smartly out of the room on steel-tipped stiletto heels, putting large holes in the floor with each step because she was quite fat. The floor already looked like a well-travelled minefield because of it. They travelled up two flights of stairs, Alex narrowly avoiding falling to his death through the stairs because they were so weak. He got into his room and tripped over a very obvious listening microphone stuck haphazardly to the doorframe. He carefully picked his way through the array of not-so-hidden tape recorders, microphones, cameras, and x-ray cameras. Once he got to his bed, he found it was a hard wooden plank without a mattress, complete with an externally controlled system of syringes, capable of injecting anything from unconscious-inducing ingredients to heart-stopping ingredients into the person who slept in it. He put his incredibly heavy bag down, crushing two tape recorders and an x-ray camera, and picked his way back to the door, where this yellow-lipsticked warthog-woman still stood waiting.

"Now ve go down to ze dinner hall, yah?" she said. Not waiting for his response, she grabbed him by the hair and started stomping on the floor, hard. After about ten stomps, the floor gave way beneath them and they fell down to the floor below, right into the dinner hall. The warthog-woman fell through the floor up to the knee and had to be pulled out by six waiters together.

"Fucking bitch, I told you to stop doing that!" screamed Sayle. He drew a Colt Magnum and shot her six times. Alex, being such a stupid hardened criminal, didn't see anything wrong with this, so he drew a Glock 17 and shot her a bunch of times as well. The waiters, mystified, nonetheless brought forward the salad. It was a heap of sordid, hopeful, rotting cabbage. Alex immediately threw it to one side and socked the waiter in the mouth, scolding the horrible food. A couple more waiters charged at Alex, wanting to beat him up on their friend's behalf, so he got up, blocked their punches and knees to the groin, and administered a few karate chops that left them passed out with their heads through the wall.

One single, large waiter ran forward, intent on revenge. Alex blocked the first few attacks and found that this guy was good at martial arts. Alex blocked several more times, before finally putting him off balance with a quick jab of the fingers. He then raised one foot and kicked him in the solar plexus. He then raised the same foot higher and kicked him across the face with his toes. He then pulled the same foot back and hit him across the face with his heel. He then spun the same foot round in a spectacular roundhouse kick that connected with the man's jaw and launched him across the room and impaled him on a decorative sword display on the wall. Twenty more waiters and cooks and dishwashers charged out of the kitchen and armed themselves from the wall. Alex grimaced, pulled a spear from the wall and threw it, slaying two. He then pulled two bastard swords from the wall and took up a defensive position, sidestepped two spear throws and a crossbow bolt. The mob streamed forward, hacking at Alex with their weapons. For a while Sayle couldn't see Alex at all, just occasional glimpses of his long swords hewing through the mob. At last the kitchen staff was nothing but a load of scattered, shattered corpses. And there was Alex, striking a kickass pose, coated from head to foot in other people's blood.

"Bravo!" screamed Sayle, applauding wildly. "You'd do well in my illegal gladiator league." Before Alex could object, he was hit by three tranquilliser darts and slumped to the ground.

* * *

"Uhhhhhnn, where the fuck am I?" wondered Alex aloud. 

"You're in the gladiator chambers," said a voice.

"This place has a gladiator league?" Alex asked, rubbing the lump on his head.

"Yes. It's wildly successful, too," another voice said. "We've got a fight in two minutes, wake up."

"Fine," mumbled Alex. He sat up and looked around. He stared at the people he'd been talking to. "Jet Li! You've been captured too!"

"Yes, I have." Jet Li said. "After such marvellous performances in so many movies, this arsehole Sayle decided to put me in his league."

"Today's fight is a very special fight." the other voice said. "First we defeat a large crowd of relatively unskilled fighters armed with medieval weapons while unarmed ourselves. Then what's left of us take on three extremely skilled experts at medieval fighting. Then what's left of that will get rid of our medieval weapons, will be newly equipped and dressed, move to another area of the arena, and participate in a historical recreation of the Shootout at the OK Corral. If anyone's left, they'll take on a bunch of guys from the American paramilitary group Delta Force."

"Holy shit, you're Russell Crowe!" exclaimed Alex. "I loved you in 'Gladiator'!"

"I'm sure you did, but trust me, I'll be useless in this fight." Russell Crowe admitted. "I can only fight if it's been pre-choreographed. I've already written out my will on the wall." Alex looked. Scratched on the stone wall with a broken Coke can were the words, 'I leve evereting to me wife.'

"It isn't a very long will, is it?" remarked Alex.

Crowe shrugged. "It took eight hours to scratch that into the wall. I couldn't be arsed to write more."

"And now, ladies and gentlemen, what you've all been waiting for!" bellowed a far away voice recognisable as Sayle's in a huge room beyond their jail cell. "The fight between the three best fighters I've ever seen and legions of other combatants! I'd like you all to give a hearty welcome to Russell Crowe, Jet Li and Felix Lester!"

"Who the hell is Felix Lester?" Alex screamed in frustration.

The door next to them opened electronically. The three stepped out of the door uncertainly into a huge Colosseum-style arena, with thousands of screaming rich people in all the seats. One half of the arena was taken up by a large, mock-up Western town. The other half was nearly empty, containing a few boulders and otherwise filled with sand.

"Now welcome this sizeable army of enthusiasts armed with medieval weapons!" Sayle bellowed from his palace-like private stand.

A howling horde of roughly a hundred people swarmed from a door the size of a lorry at the other end of the arena. Half of them were armed with a short sword and a buckler each. A third were armed with either a mace and a buckler, a small axe and a large shield, or claymores. The last sixth were armed with longbows or crossbows. This sixth aimed carefully.

"Hit the deck!" Jet Li shouted warningly. Alex dove behind cover. Jet Li ducked down as low as possible. Russell Crowe hid behind Jet Li. Arrows and bolts thudded all around them, burying themselves into the sand or boulders. The horde charged in, leaving the archers behind to provide covering fire.

"We're gonna have to be incredibly good to survive this shit." Alex yelled, stating the obvious. Jet Li crawled over to him.

"When they get close, I want you to give me a leg up on the boulder as I jump into them." Jet Li said. "It'll surprise them. It's the only chance we've got."

"It's a shitty idea, but it's better than nothing." Alex agreed and put his hands together. The mob ran closer still. At last Alex jumped onto the boulder and held his hands out. Jet Li sprinted up and placed his foot into Alex's outstretched hands. Together Jet Li jumped and Alex heaved upwards, the combined effect being that Jet Li landed square in the middle of the horde. By tripping one guy up he started a domino effect which bowled over three dozen people. He then grabbed two bucklers to give his punches extra weight and set about fighting his way out of this swarm of people.

Alex meanwhile had hurtled forwards while Jet Li was still in the air, taking advantage of how the horde were all watching his compatriot, and beat one guy into submission with three punches and a kick to the side of the knee. He took the guy's small axe and large shield and retreated, taking on his foes two or three at a time and fending them off methodically.

"Can't we all just get along?" begged Russell Crowe.

Jet Li had already converted ten people into sacks of shit and had successfully left the ring of combatants and left the firing range of the archers. The archers thus ran forward. Jet Li punched out another man by ensuring he'd never have children and blocked thirteen sword swings in succession.

Alex patiently continued backing away, blocking attacks with the shield and occasionally swinging the axe to chop off some bastard's forearm. One man ran far too close and was beheaded by a quick axe stroke.

The fighting continued like this for ten minutes, slow and methodical, until at last there were only a dozen close-combat fighters left. The archers, not being slouches, took this opportunity to begin firing arrows and bolts. So Jet Li was forced to abandon his bucklers and pick up a large shield and a mace. Alex and Jet Li used their large shields to block the arrows and their other weapons to actually attack their foes.

Alex had one foe either side and the archers on the third side. He had since abandoned his severely dulled axe and held a short sword in his other hand. He was continuously spinning round to block the newest attack. One man swung overhead with his claymore, Alex parried it. The other performed an uppercut with his mace, Alex stepped on it. The first swung sideways with his claymore, Alex dodged it. The second swung overhead, and Alex finally took a chance and blocked it with his large shield. An arrow whistled over his head. Alex lashed out backwards with his sword and foot. The attacker blocked the sword but didn't even notice the foot. Alex then slew the first attacker by gutting him with a whistling tear to the abdomen, then threw the sword into the other man's neck. The crowd went wild. Three more attackers charged at Alex. Alex blocked two arrows simultaneously and dodged beyond reach of the three sword swings. He then jumped back, snatched up a short sword, parried two swings simultaneously, blocked the third, kicked one on the side of the knee and leaving him collapsed on the ground, ducked under two shield-bashes directed at his head and castrated both of the last two melee attackers with a single swordstroke. They fell howling. There was a great, "Oooooooh!" from the crowd. They were all well prepared to finally see Jet Li get killed in a martial arts contest.

Jet Li and Alex instantly sheathed their main weapons and picked up another large shield. This greatly helped while the archers began firing like crazy, continuously raining down death upon the trio. The unstoppable duo began walking towards the archers, who continued firing. Their shields looked like pincushions from all the arrows stuck in them. At last the archers ran out of arrows. Alex peeked round the side of his shield to make sure that their quivers were empty, then cast aside the shields and drew his sword. One of the archers drew a dirk and charged at them. Almost without effort Alex and Jet butchered him to pieces, then looked up. The remaining archers had surrendered, their bows, crossbows and dirks thrown down, their hands behind their heads and on their knees. Alex and Jet looked to Sayle.

"Live! Live! Live!" chanted the crowd, thumbs pointing upwards.

Obligingly Herod Sayle pointed his thumb up. The crowd screamed with satisfaction, and the archers who survived were led back into their cells by several assault rifle-toting mercenaries.

Then three warriors burst through a door. One was incredibly heavily armoured, and swung two long flails. Another held a repeating crossbow that loaded with clips of ten bolts. The third was a ninja.

"Oh shit." Alex muttered and picked up a large shield. Jet Li did likewise, just in time; three arrows and a ninja star thudded into his shield. Alex howled and charged forwards, stopping six arrows, two ninja stars and two shuriken with his shield and blocked two flail swings. He then stopped a third swing with his short sword. The flail wrapped around it, and with a hearty chuckle the warrior yanked the sword from Alex's grasp. Terrified, Alex backed away quickly. Alex blocked another arrow, then started pulling all the projectile weapons from his shield and throwing them back. He managed to lightly wound the one with the repeating crossbow and damage the heavily armoured one's breastplate.

Meanwhile Jet Li was up close and personal with the ninja. Both were now moving too fast for the one with the crossbow to try and shoot Jet Li for fear of hitting his comrade. They moved with blinding speed, attacking with every weapon available to them, from elbows to ankles to swords to maces. It was an indescribably good fight.

Meanwhile Russell Crowe was crying behind a boulder. The spectators nearest him began hurling abuse and heavy objects at him.

Alex performed a blocking retreat, countless bolts and flail swings thudding into his shield. By the time he'd run out of reach of the archer, his shield had been destroyed by the huge battering it had taken. Alex dropped what was left of it and sprinted away. Being burdened by armour, his foe just wasn't fast enough to catch him before Alex had rearmed himself from a couple of corpses. Wielding two claymores with immense effort, Alex stood broadly and grinned evilly. The fiend snorted in contempt and charged forwards.

Jet Li had everything under control. He had successfully torn off and thrown away his opponent's bag of shuriken and ninja stars, and although he'd lost his mace, his opponent had lost his samurai sword as well. They were involved in a duel of martial art skill, moving too quickly for the average passer-by to truly comprehend the extent of their mastery. They had each met their match.

Alex swung his unwieldy weapons simultaneously. One was sidestepped, the other clanged down heavily onto the man's armour. The man grunted and swung a flail, punching Alex onto his back with it and cracking two of Alex's ribs. Enraged, Alex sat up and swung for the man's legs with one sword and blocked with the other. His sword sliced into the man's calf, and he howled, but stayed on his feet. Alex scrambled up, leaving the second claymore embedded in the man's leg. The thug jumped forwards and swung. Alex dodged backwards and swiped at the man's arms, but he withdrew them in time. Suddenly the man pivoted round and swung with both flails. Russell Crowe had snuck up behind him and was about to stick a crossbow bolt in his neck like a shiv, but both flails made contact with each side of his head, which exploded. Not being retarded, Alex took the opportunity to jump forwards and impale the bastard through the spine and heart. He stayed on his feet for a remarkable amount of time, but eventually fell.

Jet Li continued to attack methodically. He knew he wasn't getting anywhere - so far neither one had managed to hit the other - so he just had to wait until his opponent got tired.

The man with the repeating crossbow finally lost patience. He had been unable to shoot at anyone for five minutes and was very disconcerted. So he took a chance and fired at Jet Li. The bolt thudded into the back of the ninja, who fell as though his legs had been cut off. Jet Li looked up in horror, and took three bolts through the chest and neck. He fell down, got to his knees, and crawled towards the bag of shuriken. The man with the repeating crossbow fired twice more into his back. Jet Li fell onto his face, then slithered half-heartedly to the bag of shuriken. The archer sat on Jet Li's back, aimed very carefully, and fired a bolt through his neck and spine and into his brain. Jet Li was completely, utterly, dead.

The archer never even saw what killed him. Suddenly he felt an intense pain as something heavy whacked into his neck, he fell onto his side, and the crowd went ballistic. What had happened was that Alex Rider, from the opposite end of the arena, had hurled a claymore that full distance, and nearly decapitated the last super-mercenary. The crowd's elation was fully understandable, it was an incredible throw.

A snowmobile rode up to him on the sand. The man piloting it dumped a heap of stuff at Alex's feet, spat at him, and rode back to where he came from. Alex looked at it. It was a poncho, a bandolier of bullets, a Colt Peacemaker, another bandolier of rifle rounds, a lever-action Springfield rifle, a sheriff's badge, and a pair of cowboy boots. Looking over at the fake Western town, Alex could already see the 'outlaws' sitting there waiting for him.

"Oh, fuck this." Alex muttered to himself. He kicked aside the boots and poncho and put on the bandoliers and the revolver and picked up the rifle. He loaded the guns and ran over to the fake town.

"Hey, you guys." he whispered. "I don't want to fight. Do you?"

Only one person heard him. "No. I just want to survive and get out of here."

"Well, now's our best chance." Alex whispered back. "We've got guns."

"They've got hundreds of armed guards around here, specifically so that even with guns we can't escape." came the reply.

"So we'll need a distraction." Alex whispered back. He jumped out of cover and started firing with the rifle and revolver. But not at the outlaws/gladiators. Some sixty degrees to the left and forty degrees up.

See, Alex had recognised that he was in a huge underground chamber, providing the heating etc. for the mansion, office complex and industrial plant. He was directing his fire at a certain pockmarked section of a giant limestone kiln. The other outlaws, perplexed, looked at what he was shooting at, thought for a moment, and joined in. At last the dozens of rounds caused a squared metre of limestone to shatter and fall away, spilling red-hot iron into the underground chamber. Once this had been accomplished, Alex and his new compatriots concentrated their fire on a giant LNG tank. After a twenty-second hammering on that, everyone was quite low on ammo, and the LNG tank detonated with an ear-splitting crash and set most of the underground complex ablaze, excluding the arena.

One hundred percent pandemonium. The mercenaries had been ordered by Sayle himself to kill the gladiators before they escaped, but they all chose to run the fuck away before they were cremated. The rich spectators fought each other to get through the fire exit at one end of the chamber.

"Now there aren't any more guards!" Alex bellowed. "Now's our chance to escape!"

"Newsflash!" a gladiator hollered back. "We can't!"

Alex looked around. He was right. The only ways out of the gladiator cells and arena was one huge, armoured door and one rope ladder. The door was barred shut on the other side and the rope ladder had been pulled up.

"Push over one of these buildings onto the wall and climb up it!" Alex ordered.

They lost no time. They all ran over to one of the fake buildings, which hadn't exactly been built to last, and shot through the wooden foundations with rifles, severely lowering its stability and durability. Everyone then began shoving with all their strength on the timber corners.

"Not like that!" Alex yelled. "You'll just break the building that way! Lift the corners!"

Everyone changed tack and pulled upwards with all their might.

"It's no use!" yelled someone, frustrated.

"Bust up the supports more!" someone suggested. Everyone unslung their weapons and fired some more into the supports of the two-storey fake building. The building swayed slightly.

"Quick, lift it before it topples the wrong way!" shouted Alex. He did so with urgency, for this building was the only one close enough to the wall to topple onto it. The ex-gladiators heaved with all their strength. At last, the heavy timber construction wobbled and fell towards the wall. It struck - and burst into a thousand pieces.

"Fuck!" several people screamed, tears in their eyes.

But Alex just smiled and laughed out loud. For when the building hit it severely damaged the guardrail, causing the rope ladder to unfurl to the ground. He ran towards it, slinging the rifle over his back. He climbed it with lightning speed, grabbed the guardrail with one hand, and looked down to check on the other gladiators. They were all climbing it at the same time.

"No, you dumb fucks - " Alex began, but finished with a groan; he was too late to stop the rope ladder from breaking. It snapped around the middle, no way the rest could possibly climb up it. He was the only one who had managed to scale the wall.

"I'm gonna go open the main door." Alex called down. A bullet whipped past him and he crouched instinctively. He looked. A platoon of mercenaries had finally been persuaded to return and finish off the slaves. They had already identified him and were firing on the move with AKs. It was a marvel they'd even managed to come close to hitting him.

"I'm gonna have to take on some troops." Alex called down. "I'll need something with a better rate of fire than this rifle and a better ammo capacity than this damn revolver."

After a couple of seconds, someone tossed him the repeating crossbow and several spare clips for it.

"Thanks." Alex said. "Go release all the other prisoners." He crouch-ran over to Sayle's private viewing stand and took cover behind a sturdy stone wall. He leaned around the corner with his rifle (the best weapon he had for ranged combat) and started shooting. He slotted one before he knew he was being fired at and killed two more before the rest started crawling. He took a few potshots, missed with all of them and dropped the rifle. He then readied his repeating crossbow (the best weapon he had for closer combat) and started firing precisely, killing five more as they crawled behind half-decent cover. He had to reload a couple times during that time. When they were close enough that the wall was useless and they had to take decent cover (i.e. twenty feet away) he drew his revolver (the best weapon he had for close combat). He fired all six shots in succession, slaying one, then reloaded. He then ran out of cover and fired all six shots randomly, mortally wounding the last one. He discarded the revolver, for which he had no more ammo, readied the rifle and dropped the crossbow. He walked over to the wounded man and shot him three times in the face before dropping the rifle. He then looted every single soldier, holding far more weaponry than he could comfortably carry, and ran to the armoured door. He saw the keypad and swore. Working quickly, he disassembled the control box. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the flood of lava edging closer. He swore louder and unpinned a grenade. Cramming it into the control panel, he ran the fuck away.

When the grenade went off in such a confined area, the heat alone instantly melted the plastic wire insulation and pressed all the wires together, causing one helluva short-circuit. Surely, with every wire touching every other one, there would have to be a lucky break and there would be the right kind of short circuit and open the door. But in a one-in-a-hundred fluke, there wasn't. All he had succeeded in doing was make it impossible to punch in the real code.

But was that all he'd done? He stared at the structural flaws now present in the wall. There was a gaping hole where the electronics should have been.

"Worth a try," he murmured. He unpinned five of his remaining grenades and chucked them down the hole into the bowels of the wall. He then ran away again.

The result was a gut-wrenching BOOM that could even be heard over all the other explosions in the room. The wall seemed to rip itself apart and tumble down. The door still didn't open, but now there was a clear rock-climbing path from the arena to the top of the wall. Shouting in pure glee, all fifty of the remaining gladiators, ten of whom were armed with guns and the rest armed with melee weapons, charged over to the ex-wall and climbed up its many jutting pieces of masonry and electrical circuits to the top of the wall. Once there, Alex armed everyone he could with some of the stolen gear. Once everyone was at the top, weapons were redistributed. Now ten people, including Alex, were armed with AK-47 assault rifles, ten more were armed with the sidearms of the platoon, a strange brand of pistol called the P7, ten more were armed with lever-action rifles, and the last ten were armed with revolvers with very little ammo and crossbows. Plus everyone had a sword.

This army of fifty burst out the fire exit, prepared for soldiers. The soldiers there were prepared for them. The seven soldiers there massacred twenty gladiators before being killed themselves. Weapons were redistributed, doing away with the remainder of the Western guns and crossbows. They ran up the stairs and found themselves in Sayle's huge multi-room, the same one Sayle had played pool in. Alex turned around and looked at the signs. Outside, Waste Disposal Room, Secret Anthrax Manufacture Room.

"So the conspiracy must have been in the Secret Anthrax Manufacture Room!" Alex exclaimed. "I'd have never seen that coming." Behind his back the other ex-gladiators made various spastic impersonations.

Being so very unobservant and drunk before, Alex hadn't even noticed the giant water tank containing the forty foot long jellyfish in the pool room. None of the rest of the gladiators cared; they all ran headlong out into the compound, murdered the soldiers who barred their way, and the surviving seven of them stole a car and didn't drop their speed below 100mph until they were on a ferry at Dover bound for Calais. But Alex himself decided to walk closer to the jellyfish (with his gun levelled out of habit) to observe this monstrosity. He was four metres away from it, his gun pointing at the ground in front of the tank.

He heard a pistol cock next to his ear.

"Now, you ist going to drop za gun unt get on your knees, yah?" said a voice into his ear. Alex laughed.

"Please don't make me do this." he said calmly.

"But you vill do it, or I is shootings you, yah?" she said, irritated and suspicious, the barrel of the .38 special coming forward and pressing into his neck.

"Fine, if you insist." Alex sighed. He jumped to the side and raised the assault rifle. The German warthog-woman fired, but .38 specials are so shit that it missed by three metres.

Alex hadn't pointed the gun at her. He knew that if he did that she'd be able to kill him during that time. He had aimed at the tank and now fired a long burst.

The glass had been made to withstand great internal pressure, so the outer pressure suddenly quadrupling caused it to crack. That was more than enough. In a thousandth of a second, the crack had grown to a basketball-sized hole, the water pressure spurting out at fifty miles an hour and propelling the German warthog-woman out the window. In another tenth of a second, the entire tank had shattered completely, drenching the entire room.

Alex spat a couple of white pool balls out of his mouth and got to his feet. It occurred to him that his assault rifle might not be water-resistant, so he pulled the trigger several times. It didn't work. He threw it away, pulled out his P7 and fired into the wall, leaving six bullets left. He grinned. But this weapon was practically useless for long range. He looked around, noticed a spear gun, and took it, pocketing the P7. On the side of the spear gun was written. 'Retractable spear. 50m range - FOR UNDERWATER USE ONLY'.

Alex had to warn the PM to not authorise the movement of the computers, because they were filled with anthrax. He quickly found a phone in the building and got the number from the operator for Nomoneypenny's daytime line. He got connected and began his story without waiting for the head of MI6 to respond.

"Miss Nomoneypenny! You were right, it's a Trojan horse, Sayle's a damned psycho who's filled his gift computers with anthrax, I saw conclusive evidence, and he also ran a gladiator arena in the basement of his mansion, but I blew that and all the rest of his utilities up, and you've just got to stop the PM from authorising the movement order!"

The voice on the other end intoned, "Your call is important, please wait while we ignore it... Your call is important, please wait while we ignore it..."

"God damn it!" Alex shouted and slammed the phone down. He stood up and ran out into the courtyard. A mere two metres away two soldiers were sitting in the Jeep having just gotten the engine started. Alex raised the harpoon gun and shot one in the head. The harpoon travelled clean through him and through the second soldier's head as well. Alex jumped into the driver's seat, pushing one corpse aside, and revved the engine. He knew he wouldn't have enough time to drive all the way back to London, but he'd seen an alternative. A two-seater Cessna plane had its nose rotor revving. It began taxiing down to the runway.

"Shit." Alex swore and revved the engine past the red line. The tyres squealed and smoked on the pavement as the machine leapt forward. He was gaining on the plane fast, but it was picking up speed nearly as fast. It was going to be close.

Behind him he heard another Jeep squeal onto the runway. It somehow identified him as a stolen Jeep (probably the blood-splattered windscreen) and he heard the chattering of a heavy machine-gun. The windscreen took a load of bullets and shattered. He felt sure that soon the bastard would blow one of Alex's tyres so he knew he had to do something. But all he had was a few guns and a few grenades. He'd be lucky to jump up, spin round and fire so much as three bullets before being murdered by the heavy machine-gun, and there was no way he could explode a grenade in a vehicle while fifty metres away from it.

Then he had an idea.

Pulling out two of his remaining four grenades, he set their fuses to their maximum limit, ten seconds. He took the now-inoperable gun part of the spear gun and wedged it in the footwell. The spear part of the spear gun was still shoved through the heads of the two dead soldiers. He unpinned both of the ten-second grenades and placed one into the front pocket of each of the corpses, buttoning them securely. Eight, seven... He opened the driver's side door, dragged the bodies over to it and dropped them out. Five, four, three... The corpses tumbled away, attached to the spear and therefore the retractable wire leading from the spear and therefore the spear gun and therefore Alex's stolen Jeep. They tumbled right to the end of the fifty-metre wire, then started being dragged along by the Jeep via the spear through their ears. The enemy Jeep was fifty metres behind, so the corpses sat directly underneath the enemy Jeep. They stayed there for a second. Then the grenades exploded, dicing up the vehicle's undercarriage, mincing the corpses and driver, and tearing the vehicle in half. The machine-gunner's half of the vehicle then catapulted because it no longer had any tyres, and he smacked into the pavement headfirst at eighty miles an hour, instantly converting him into a vampire's Ready Meal. Alex looked at this in the rear-view mirror and grinned. He picked up the spear gun and wedged it onto the accelerator, then winded up the spear gun wire trailing on the road and wrapped it around his hand. Since his Jeep had had its windscreen shaved off, it was now possible for Alex to drive directly beneath the Cessna's wing towards the passenger compartment. He slung an assault rifle over his back, readied a P7 with full ammo and opened the door. The pilot turned his head. It was none other than Herod Sayle.

"Keep going!" Alex ordered.

"No!" Herod Sayle ordered. "I am part of the Al Qaeda. I will not help you stop this shipment of anthrax from reaching English schools. Allah will love me forever if I manage it!"

"Newsflash; all that crap in the Qu'ran about how you must kill infidels - it wasn't originally part of the Qu'ran. It was just ancient Arab imperialism doctored into it by that greedy warmonger Mohammed so he wouldn't have to pay his troops to fight."

"No - no it isn't! Praise Allah!" Sayle cried.

"It happened with Christianity as well. They read the old testament and figured that God hated all non-Christians and wanted them to burn in Hell because he constantly called down plagues upon them. So they ran around killing anyone who didn't believe in the Bible during the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, Joan of Arc, and all sorts of crap like that. But we grew out of it, because we read the more peaceful parts of the Bible and realised that God wasn't that mean."

Sayle began sobbing. "I'm confused. Fine, fine, I'll take you to London." Alex grinned and yanked the wire, dislodging the spear gun and causing the Jeep to slow down almost immediately. The plane took off.

* * *

"Ah, here's London!" Sayle said miserably. 

"Don't worry. If I stop your vile scheme and you plead guilty in a court of law and profess your change of faith and turn in and rat out all your compatriots on video camera, they might lower your jail time to fifty life sentences."

Sayle cried louder.

"Just land us as close as possible to 10 Downing Street or MI6 headquarters so I can warn the PM." Alex said tersely.

"It'll be easiest to land on the huge roof of the MI6 building." Sayle decided and nosed twenty degrees downwards.

The radio came to life. "Cessna flight Bravo One Niner, please state flight plan, over."

Sayle looked at Alex.

"Make it up." Alex suggested, not realising that Sayle was accidentally depressing the transmit button.

"Cessna flight Bravo One Niner, I heard that, you stupid fucking terrorist. Change course to Cambridge Airport immediately or risk retribution, over."

"No way." Sayle said into the radio unwisely. "We need to land here, over."

"Cessna flight Bravo One Niner, you do not have authorisation to land in any large London airport or even any small London airport. You will change your course to one-niner-five magnetic immediately or you will answer to the anti-terrorist Patriot missile barrage we have."

"We're in big boy shit now!" Alex screamed.

"I'm going to land on the MI6 building." Sayle decided, face set.

"Cessna flight Bravo One Niner, change course to one-niner-five magnetic immediately or you will answer to the anti-terrorist Patriot missile barrage we have. Do you copy? Over."

"That's the building there." Sayle told Alex.

"Slow down, we'll never taxi to a stop that quickly!" Alex shouted. "And pull up more!"

"No, if I slow down any more we'll stall, and if I pull up more we'll slow down!" Sayle yelled back.

"Cessna flight Bravo One Niner, this is your very last warning, if you fail to comply within the next five seconds we will be forced to shoot your nigger terrorist asses down on top of London, over."

"FUCK!" Alex shrieked, his life flashing before his eyes. The Cessna approached the MI6 building. Alex could see people on the roof with guns look up and scatter out of the way.

"Cessna flight Brava One Niner, you really should've turned, over and out." The Cessna touched down and bounced up slightly before touching down again. Alex saw something streak up high into the air out of the corner of his eye.

"FUCK IT!" Alex bellowed. He kicked open the door and leapt out, hitting the ground very hard. His shoulder was absolute agony. The Cessna bounced along a few more metres, then suddenly something whacked into it in the blink of an eye and blew up. The plane itself was converted into shrapnel and a fireball. This fireball fell off the building into the middle of the street, thankfully killing no one.

"Freeze, motherfucker! Drop it!" shouted an agent standing over Alex, holding an MP5 submachinegun to Alex's head. Alex let the P7 hit the ground, took the assault rifle from around his back, threw it at the officers, and put his hands up. They were instantly plasticuffed.

"Look, I'm an MI6 agent too, I've just come from a very dangerous operation and in those free computers for schools Herod Sayle shoved in a load of anthrax! You need to order the PM to disallow the delivery!"

The agents looked at each other and laughed aloud. "If you're gonna lie you could at least do it well." One of them clapped him round the ear hard. They dragged him down to a 3x9 cell, threw him in, and locked the door.

* * *

Half an hour later, none other than Miss Nomoneypenny walked in. 

"I heard your report by pure chance while talking to the man who arrested you about the plane crash." she said before Alex could start. "Naturally I immediately got on the phone and ordered the stoppage of the delivery instead of ordering your release. It was of a higher importance."

"Thank God for that." Alex breathed. "If I hadn't saved all those innocent schoolchildren's lives, you might not have paid me."

"We're not paying you anyway, we're too cheap." Nomoneypenny smiled cruelly. "And now that your guardian is dead, we legally own everything you have, including your life. You are my bitch now."

"Fuck you!" he screamed.

"I thought you'd be more grateful, since we're now ensuring you a life of killing people, blowing things up, and letting you get drunk and high constantly in between missions." she said, surprised.

"Good point." Alex smiled and got up. "Just show me to the nearest whorehouse."


End file.
